COMMENT Lockerbie deal leaves no clean hands
By Ian Williams
United States President Barack Obama owes Libya and Scotland a lot. The release
of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was like throwing red meat to the wolves
who have been on the president's case. For a week, hysteria about Obama-care,
euthanasia, abortion and the rest has been subsumed under a wave of bipartisan
indignation about Megrahi.
The America that gave the world the Salem witch trials and the lynch mob ran
unabashed and there was the unedifying spectacle
of the Obama team running alongside, baying in harmony. (Although perhaps one
of the most ill-augured boycott calls ever made is the one to eschew Scotch
whisky.)
In contrast, over much of the world, Scotland's decision
to release Lockerbie bomber [1] Megrahi on compassionate grounds because he is
dying of terminal cancer seems reasonable, as Scottish Justice Minister
Kenneth MacAskill so eloquently expounded when giving his decision.
Even so, listening to MacAskill's dithyrambs of self-praise for Scottish
judicial compassion would have evoked a guffaw from generations of convicts who
were victims of Scotland's vindictively Calvinist prisons in times past.
Compassion is a relatively recent official trait in the country, but American
furor can make Scotland pride itself on its double independence, cocking a
snook at both London and Washington.
However, "compassion", no matter how recent in Scotland, still has no part in
the US political or judicial make-up. The American news media were filled with
reports about how Britain and Scotland were "on the defensive", and how the
victims' families were crying for revenge. But victims' families in Britain
supported the release, and the decision created nowhere near the fury in
Britain and Scotland that it did on the other side of the Atlantic.
United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller
called the Libyan's release "a mockery of the rule of law" and complained to
MacAskill that his decision was "as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the
cause of justice".
MacAskill does not need lessons in justice from the US, certainly not from the
FBI, with its notorious use of paid informants and provocateurs. When the USS
Vincennes indisputably shot down an Iranian Airbus in 1988, killing
290, the crew involved received medals. When the case of dubiously convicted
murderer Troy Davis came up before the Supreme Court this month, two justices,
fortunately a minority, declared that there was nothing unconstitutional about
executing an innocent man as long as he had had a trial.
The US has an incarceration rate more then four times Britain's, almost 10
times that of the European Union as a whole and even higher than Russia's.
Clearly, dying in prison has no fears in the US - for those who inflict it.
Prisons have had to be adapted for wheelchairs for inmates too old to walk, let
alone commit new crimes.
Few people come out with clean hands from the episode. British Prime Minister
Gordon Brown certainly knew of the impending release, and did not strive too
officiously to avert it, while his protests at Libyan celebrations provide
cover against the equally expedient and contrived protests from the White
House. British and American oil companies will still be knocking on doors in
Tripoli - and finding them opened.
In an oil-short world, Libya has been able to behave with almost Chinese
impunity. When I saw that the Swiss president had apologized to Libyan leader
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son Hannibal, I briefly wondered if it was because
his ancestors had mistreated the Carthaginian general's elephants on their way
across the Alps.
But no, the Swiss had released Gaddafi's son a year ago after the latter had
paid off the domestics who had complained to the police about abuse. However,
since Libya ratted on the Irish Republican Army comrades it used to arm and
finance, the British government has had no compunctions in cozying up to
Gaddafi, and the eagerness of US business to get into the country has been
palpable.
It was naive of Brown to expect the notoriously quixotic Gaddafi to abide by
the "no public rejoicing" clause in whatever discussions led up to the release.
Indeed, it meant that he showed much more loyalty to Megrahi than former
president George W Bush did to his convicted aide Scooter Libby, or indeed
Brown is likely to show to MacAskill.
Voluntary fall guys are the noblest fools in politics. Megrahi "volunteered" to
go to The Hague and take the rap for Libya to rejoin the world economy. If one
overlooks the possibility that dire things might have happened to his family if
he hadn't, greater love hath no one ... [2]
His sacrifice is all the more so in view of the strong possibility of his
innocence. Totally lost, as so often in the US, is any doubt that someone
convicted could possibly be innocent. In fact, it would be a stretch to say
that a secret policeman for Gaddafi was "innocent". The regime has proven blood
aplenty on its hands, but there is plausible evidence that investigators were
so determined to "convict" Libya that they ignored all other leads.
Megrahi's eventual conviction hinged on the confused and contradictory evidence
of a Maltese shopkeeper, whose recollections had him aging, rejuvenating,
growing and shrinking, depending on who was taking the testimony, and who only
finally identified him after his photographs had been widely circulated. The
trial as part of the "cleansing" of Libya along with the several billions in
blood-money took place in The Hague with Scottish judges, who found his
co-accused, on almost identical evidence, not guilty.
Many observers suspect a jury would have thrown both cases out. His release on
compassionate grounds was predicated on him dropping his appeal against the
conviction, which many felt had a good chance of success. Indeed, he seems to
have needed Gaddafi's say-so before dropping the appeal. If Megrahi were
guilty, it was because he was acting as an agent for the Gaddafi now being
greeted by politicians all over the West. If he were not, then the intelligence
agencies of the West framed an innocent man to score political points at Libya.
MacAskill's halo is the only one on the horizon in this murky world.
Note
1. Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled
trans-Atlantic flight from London's Heathrow Airport to New York's John F
Kennedy International Airport. On Wednesday, December 21, 1988, the aircraft
flying this route - a Boeing 747-121 named Clipper Maid of the Seas -
was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members. Eleven
people in Lockerbie, southern Scotland, were killed as large sections of the
plane fell in and around the town, bringing total fatalities to 270.
2. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his
friends." John 15:13.
Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.
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